The Speed Force of Musicals

Before the Dark Knight came into my life courtesy of Miller, Loeb, and Sale, there was the Flash. I never took him all that seriously. I mean, how can you? And, yes, I am sorry to say to all you purists out there, the Flash has always been Wally Wallace and not good old Barry Allen, since I came to the franchise through “Born to Run” when Wally was introduced as Kid Flash.

I few years back, I determined that the Flash is one of the few superheroes you can bring to the stage fairly cheaply while maintaining the theatricality of his power: you just slow everyone else on stage way down. I came to realize this through a dramaturgy project that proposed how one could adapt Identity Crisis for theater, and the research thread led me to the this gem of a site, Flash: For Those Who Ride The Lightning, which is arguably the most comprehensive superhero-devoted site out there.

At one point Wally burned calories like nobody’s business. Seriously. He could eat Michael Phelps under the table. But then he tapped into the Speed Force. From the site:

For years it was assumed that all humans with super-speed abilities derived them from a different source. The first Flash inhaled fumes from an experimental chemical. The next two were struck by lightning. Johnny Quick used a spoken formula derived from an Egyptian tomb. The Soviet teams Red and Blue Trinity were given power by combinations of steroids, gene splicing, and other biological experiments.

However, one speedster was able to learn more about the source of the mysterious power: Windrunner, legend of the American West.

One evening, at the absolute peak of his prowess, he felt the night lightning…calling him. Not with his eyes or mind—but deep in his heart—he sensed a strange beckoning…and chased it. Into the unknown, Windrunner raced faster and faster. He shattered all limits. He moved quicker than the hurricane, more swiftly than the thunderbolt…faster than light itself. Reaching supreme velocity, he approached the threshold of a new communion. For a span razor-thin even to him, Windrunner touched the very source of his great power—and was transformed. The speed force drew Windrunner in…without words, inviting him to the other side of light, to become one with the power…as others had before him. —(Max Mercury, Flash v.2 #97, January 1995)

The way the speed force seems to work is that it powers any super-fast being not naturally fast. A cheetah, for instance, is naturally fast. Superman’s speed is also a natural consequence of his Kryptonian heritage. All Flashes, however, have been normal people “noticed” by the speed force through accidents (lightning, supersonic flight, etc.) or intentional experiments (magic, steroids, etc.).

Damn I love this site.

So I have been going to the gym pretty regularly, trying to be a good Californian. I’m trying to get rid of the Think Belly before going home for Thanksgiving. And my new thing has been to listen to musicals on the treadmill (this begun with my reintroduction to Violet a couple weeks ago). Good recent musicals–I am not talking about Oklahoma!–are perfect for running because they have THOSE SONGS that just make your pores percolate, that send electricity coursing through your body. A field of electrons collects just above your skin so that when you touch the heart-rate monitor you get shocked. You’re convinced you’re glowing. You are convinced that you can send your aura out and hack into the brains of everyone around you. You forget you’re running. Well, until you get tired.

There’s a guy at work who calls himself the only true “musical loving-homo” there, and he got a bunch of us cheap(ish) tickets for Spring Awakening. Awesome first act; disappointingly flawed second act. But I cannot stop listening to the soundtrack. I’m listening to it right now! I am wondering if I can sweet talk my way in again some Tuesday night.

What other genius musicals are out there? Has 13 recorded yet? Hook me up.

I wonder if the Speed Force is addictive?

this memory brought to you by apple

If I tell you my heart has been opened wide,
If I tell you I’m frightened,
If I show you the darkness I hold inside,
Will you bring to me light?

Violet by Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley

I am sitting in the archive room in the back of the third floor of the Mechanic’s Library doing research on the right-to-die debate which eventually (though it is looking less and less like it is going to happen this week) I am going to turn into an article for Words on Plays. The room smells like my Nana’s old house in Boston, which I remember in disorganized scrapbook pieces: a game of solitaire in mid-play on the small table in the kitchen, a drawer in the dining room where I recovered a watch when we were clearing out her things, the bed I share with my sister in the bedroom with the old 12-inch television that still had the nobs on the front.

In an attempt to catch up with the times, I recently replaced my laptop (which was around 82 in tech years) with a macbook, encouraged not only by their spiffy commericials convincing me it was the coolest decision I would make this decade, but also by the enticing offer of a free iPod touch. Sitting in Nana’s library, I didn’t really need music, it being one of those rooms in one of those libraries where there is just enough atmosphere that you are not distracted, but it doesn’t let your mind drift either.

But I opted for music after hour two, and discovered that the beauty of an iPod is the rediscovery of songs you haven’t heard in years. I hadn’t heard “Bring me to Light” since I dramaturged Violet my last year as a student at WU, the first production I really dramaturged on my own from start to finish. My first dramaturgical protocol. My first dramaturg note. My first display case.

I had no tact when it came to delivering criticism. Just as my younger sister gave up cursing in the fifth grade (before that she swore like a sailor…I’m kidding), I had given up lying–even the polite kind–by this point and I was bad at concealing my thoughts for lack of practice. This is why I never stuck around after any performance, for fear that someone would ask if I liked their work because if I hadn’t they would know it. For Violet, I resorted to writing all of my notes and then, rather than giving them to my director straightaway, typed them up so that a) I could tone down and clarify unhelpful comments like “This whole scene is not working!” and b) she could review the notes in the comfort of her own office, where she could scowl and throw darts at a photograph of my face.

She and I got slightly drunk at an event later in the year. She told me how much she valued my thoughts, and how furious she got when she read them.

“You can’t do that with someone who doesn’t know you well, Dan.”

Definitely on the top ten list of what I learned in my seven years of involvement with the academy

I include this clip from that production, not because I like it, but because I don’t. The power of the ensemble in this little musical always cut me deep, with songs like this carrying me away into a river of emotional pensiveness. In person, that is: during rehearsal and runs. Something is lost in the recording of it. The fact that one cannot replace the live performance with this recorded shadow is why I know theater has a place. It’s immobility, however, is also why I fear for it.